I can confirm the D2D PITA factor. They are light-years behind Steam as far as user-friendliness.
But the game was only $14.99 and I used the discount code (marchmadness) which knocked it down to under $13. For that price I will jump through a couple of hoops.
Go buy it, get it DLed and installed and get ready to ram each other on Sunday night!
I should have payed the extra $15 and bought it on steam. D2D was THAT bad. 
I even tried gifting the game to one of the forum members but I didn’t have the drop down box that gave me that option.
This is why I quit using D2D.
I’d get the N4S game from another source but I’ve already bought six new games this month, including Codemaster’s F1 from Steam.
Dang–I almost got Batman on D2D this weekend, but after reading about the PITA factor, I figure I’ll wait (especially since I’ll be getting a new computer in the next couple of weeks and fear further PITA as I transfer things from one to the other).
I’ve never had a problem with d2d (other than their stupid gifting system) and those who did ended up having it resolved within a few hours automatically, just weird that they act like that at all. It probably won’t be any trouble on your end to get it.
Weird question: Can you transfer games you own from other services (ex. I have a bunch from Gamer’s Gate) onto Steam?
Any game can be added to your Steam library but only ones on this list will be kept up to date, if your key is in the right format.
Cool. Thank you very much.
There’s a short offer of a big indie game bundle pack called for some reason “the potato sack”. $38 for 14 games, including super meat boy, defense grid, audiosurf, and amnesia, which are all very good games. You can also re-gift copies of stuff you already own, which is a pleasant surprise. Usually publishers won’t give steam the legal right to do that, so you only see it on valve games and a few games where they specifically allow for it - but maybe this will start a greater trend.
I got an e-mail from green man gaming saying their deals this week would be:
* All week: Get Sniper: Ghost Warrior for $9.97
* Monday: Get East India Company Collection for $4.47
* Tuesday: Get Just Cause 2 for $8.98
* Wednesday: Get Lara Croft & The Guardian of Light for $4.48
* Thursday: Get Sid Meier's Civilization V for $19.97
* Friday: Get SEGA Dreamcast Collection for $14.98
* Saturday: Get BioShock 2 for $9.98
* Sunday: Get Tomb Raider Anniversary for $2.98
The civ 5 deal is the best I’ve seen. I’ve only gotten one game from GMG and it was a steamworks game so basically they e-mailed me a cd key, I put it into steam, and then it became a normal steam game. Civ 5 is steamworks so it would work the same way. For something other than a steamworks game, I’m not sure how they do it. The Lara Croft game is worth $5 too.
They also sent me a personalized e-mail coupon code for 20% off on top of that, but it’s a one time use code for existing customers, so unless you bought something from them already you can’t take advantage of that.
Still, if you’ve been waiting on civ 5, this is the best you’ll get for a while. I think you can use paypal with them IIRC.
Edit: Just browsed the site and anyone can get the 20% off with code 20PEC-GMGV2-PROMO - I assume it stacks with normal discounts, in which case civ 5 would be $16.
Today is the day to buy Civ 5 on GMG. If you want Civ 5 there probably won’t be a better time for a while, and like i said, since it steamworks you just add the cd key they mail you to steam and it acts just like you bought it on steam. I’m looking into getting multiplayer scheduled games together (it works better/quicker than you’d think) so contact me on steam if interested. Use promo code 20pec-GMGv2-promo to get an extra 20% off.
D2D is having a very loosely themed “transportation” sale. IL-2:1946 is the definitive WW2 combat flight simulator and is a steal at $2.50. I know some people really love sword of the stars (complete collection $6) but I’ve never played it.
There’s also another D2D code for 20% off of anything for this weekend (SHOWERS). Mass Effect 2 is $10 for today only. GTA 4 complete is $10. The code should be able to take 20% off any of those prices too.
Steam has Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition for $10.
Gamersgate has Hearts of Iron 3 for $7, and the rest of the HOI series 70% off.
Everyone needs to check out Humble Bundle 3 for those that don’t know it is a pack of indie games where you set the price. You also get Steam Activation codes for those that support them (most of them). No DRM and you can re-download them as long as they keep the site up.
The most notable item in this pack is Trine. And as you set the price you really can’t get screwed. I’ve bought every pack so far and haven’t regretted any of them.
Steam is having a series of one day sales from 2k games this week. Today Bioshock and Bioshock 2 are $5 each. Magicka is also only sale for $5, or $7 with the new dlc. I just noticed TF2 is $10 now - doesn’t seem to be a sale but a permanent price change, so if for some reason you’re the only person on earth that doesn’t have it yet, that’s a great deal. We have SDMB games a few times a week with 14+ of us.
Direct2Drive is having 30 one day sales, so check every day. Today it’s Dirt 2 for $5 which I highly recommend.
Edit: As mentioned above, grab that humble pack and don’t be a cheap ass. Frozenbyte is one of my favorite indie devs and they deserve the support, plus some of it goes to charity.
For Dirt and NFS, should I get a steering wheel or an xbox controller or something like that?
A wheel requires money and space and patience to get it working sometimes.
An XBox, Logitech, or other gamepad controller will give you the analog control and is smaller and cheaper. Doesn’t feel as much like driving though.
Start with a gamepad - it’s a cheaper investment and you can play more types of games with it. Recommend the xbox 360 pad - everything already has built in custom support for it with no configuration and it’s a well designed one. If you find yourself really getting into the racing games, you can look into getting a wheel. The gamepad works pretty well - it can actually work better for games like dirt 2 when where quick flicks can be more important than precision (and the opposite for f1 simulators for example) - the wheel always feels like a more interesting experience though. But I have both and use both depending on mood and whether I want to set up the wheel.
Torchlight is $3.75 on D2D, not sure if it’s a daily sale or what so grab it now. Bordlernads and DLC is 75% off on steam.
I didn’t know Steam had those kinds of games…
Heh, I think it’s funny how the average Linux user chose to pay almost three times as much as the average Windows user. But the dollar amounts might be skewed by a few people who paid A LOT. Someone paid $2000, and two other people paid over $1000.
With some of the proceeds going to charity, it kinda sucks that the average person only paid $5. And that average includes those large outlier payments, so many people paid much less.